On Getting Older and Grandma Addams:

We agree that I am old, an elder, a dinosaur. But every once in a while I get sideswiped by this fact.

Yesterday I was getting ready to go to my cancer group meeting and I was I bit surprised. I was doing up my hair and right there at my temples where once only a few strands of gray salted my brown hair was streaks of the stuff. And before you say ‘Get thee off to thy Stylist.’ I am allergic to hair dye. I have no tattoos. Allergic. Not even henna ones. Very allergic.

Add to this that a new woman joined my cancer group and thought that I was her age and she was 11 years older then me.

Do I like the new look? Yes. Was I not waiting for this day when I could do the bride of Frankenstein look without a wig? Yes. So what is the fuss? This is not a choice any longer. Now I am looking my age and apparently more.

Do I throw in the towel and go Crone? I like Grandma Addams as well as the others. I did the Uncle Fester thing when I was in cancer treatments, fat, bald and dark circles around my eyes. (Look Ma no makeup.) But sometimes I still want to be Morticia with an occasional Wednesday thrown in for fun. Now in the mirror I see something quite different. And this look says the fun is over.

Yes, Grandma Addams does know how to have her fun. And I do to. But one does like to have options. My options seem to be dwindling.

Getting older also has an element of the uncomfortable otherwise known as disappearance. The ‘you’ that you have become comfortable with seeing in the mirror is replaced with someone unfamiliar. One day you have the best ‘you’ looking out at you and in no time at all it’s gone. You feel like you are disappearing.

I’m not heading for the botox. I’m not going under the knife. No lifts or tucks. I’m not even getting a new wig. I have chosen to adapt to this metamorphosis of mine. If that is the cards I’m dealt, Grandma Addams here I come. But I’m gonna’ walk. Flying into the face of it is too hard so I’m telling everyone that my broom is in the shop.

Pass the baking powder. I gotta’ hide some wrinkles.